John 1:1 – The Word was God

Tag Archives: Jeremiah Johnson

Truth matters, especially when it comes to worship. That ought to be obvious; you can’t properly praise the Lord if you don’t know who He is. Christ Himself was unequivocal on that point—He said true worshippers “must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24, emphasis added).

However, much of modern worship music seems to aim at taming the one true God. Some popular “worship songs” are nothing more than artificial praise offered to a different god altogether. In his book Worship, John MacArthur describes the fallout of the biblical illiteracy that permeates the church today.

“Worship” aims to be as casual and as relaxed as possible, reflecting an easy familiarity with God unbefitting His transcendent majesty. This type of “worship” seems to aim chiefly at making sinners comfortable with the idea of God—purging from our thoughts anything like fear, trembling, reverence, or profound biblical truth. . . .

The decline of true worship in evangelical churches is a troubling sign. It reflects a depreciation of God and a sinful apathy toward His truth among the people of God. Evangelicals have been playing a kind of pop-culture trivial pursuit for decades, and as a result, the evangelical movement has all but lost sight of the glory and grandeur of the One we worship. [1]

During our recent visits to Hillsong Los Angeles, we’ve seen that trend played out in vivid detail. Worse still, we’ve identified some unbiblical characteristics that Hillsong routinely attribute to God.

This is no performanceLord, I pray it’s worshipEmpty words I can’t affordI’m not chasing feelingsThat’s not why I’m singingYou’re the reason for my song

And I only wanna singIf I sing with everythingIf I sing for you, my King

I can’t imagine whyI would do this all for hypeCause it’s all to lift You high

At this point in the song—titled “Only Wanna Sing”—the music soars, the strobe lights fire up, and everyone on stage and in the crowd begins to dance with reckless abandon.

The irony is hard to miss.

That song—by the band Hillsong Young and Free—epitomizes many of the issues with much of Hillsong’s worship music: vague lyrical content, confused doctrinal perspectives, and an emphasis on style over substance.

Appeal Through Ambiguity

Hillsong’s philosophy fits well with the zeitgeist of our day. The social scientists now tell us that morality is subjective, gender is fluid, and truth is an illusion. Clearly, the precise theology espoused in ancient hymns won’t get the job done anymore.

Hillsong has probably done a better job than anyone else in filling the musical void that many modern churches have experienced. Their songs are catchy, their musicians are excellent, and their songwriters know how to “sound Christian” enough to salve the consciences of all in attendance. Consequently, their music permeates the Christian world, and their album sales are huge—even by secular standards.

Lest you anticipate some fundamentalist rant at this point, we need to be clear: This is not a screed against modern music infiltrating the church.

But we should be wary when our ancient and exclusive faith is overrun with modern songs featuring a fluid and indistinct message. In many instances, Hillsong lyrics are so vague they could be embraced by most religions.

At break of day, in hope we riseWe speak Your Name, we lift our eyesTune our hearts into Your beatWhere we walk, there You’ll be

Most diners and restaurants across the country can serve you fried chicken, but only KFC has the Colonel’s original recipe of eleven herbs and spices. The same goes for other brand names you recognize—Coca Cola and Krispy Kreme stand out from their competitors because of the uniqueness of their products.

In each case, the secret recipe is the key to their success. Through trial and error, each of them has developed a specific formula for its product that appeals to the widest-possible audience.

But what if you’re not selling chicken, soda, or doughnuts? What if, as prosperity preacher T.D. Jakes once said, “Jesus is the product”? Tragically, too many in the church today have adopted that mindset—they’ve developed their own formulas to make Christ and the gospel more appealing to the world.

The quest for Christianity’s secret recipe goes back to nineteenth century revivalist Charles Grandison Finney. Finney believed he could win souls through a variety of methods that would compel his listeners into making a decision for Christ. He argued that a revival “is not a miracle, or dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means.” [1]

Finney was a pragmatist driven solely by results. He held no strong allegiance to any theological framework. That’s why his preaching was such a mixed bag—he was only interested in refining his sales pitch. In his day, that meant crusades of fire and brimstone preaching, as he worked to scare sinners into the arms of the Savior.

Finney’s methods live on in the hellfire and damnation preachers we see on busy street corners today. Their promise of fire insurance against God’s impending wrath echoes the tone and topic of much of Finney’s teaching.

But Finney’s legacy extends beyond modern prophets of doom. The seeker-sensitive movement—while seemingly antithetical to fire and brimstone preaching—owes just as much to Finney’s influence, with its emphasis on emotion, pragmatism, and developing widespread appeal.

In fact, Finney’s fingerprints are all over modern seeker-sensitive strategies. Consider these words from Rick Warren, perhaps the world’s foremost purveyor of seeker-sensitive strategies: “It is my deep conviction that anybody can be won to Christ if you discover the key to his or her heart. . . . The most likely place to start is with the person’s felt needs.” [2]

Just like Finney, seeker-sensitive gurus are devoted to developing the latest and greatest formula for selling the gospel. Every aspect of the church experience, from the style of music and teaching to design aesthetics—even the kind of clothes the pastor wears—are carefully chosen to make the message as user-friendly and enticing as possible.

But marketing and manipulation don’t make the gospel any more plausible or potent. No scare tactics or sideshow techniques can secure salvation or transform the sinner’s heart. Even Finney acknowledged that the vast majority of his converts “would of course soon relapse into their former state.” [3]

The truth is that the gospel doesn’t need to be cleverly packaged—it simply needs to be preached.

The pure gospel message has never been a seductive sales pitch; on the contrary, it is foolishness to the unbeliever.

God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Corinthians 1:21–24)

There’s no clever gimmick that makes Christ’s sacrificial death more believable. The truth of the gospel is inherently offensive to fleshly ears. Making it attractive to the world would require altering the message itself; and that’s what often happens in seeker-sensitive churches. Unappealing fundamental truths about sin, hell, repentance, faith, submission, and holiness are buried under layers of worldly entertainment, pop culture trends, and man-centered self-improvement.

The bottom line is simple—either God’s Word is sufficient to bring people to repentance and faith or it isn’t. And while many seeker-sensitive gurus wouldn’t openly question the sufficiency of Scripture, their dependence on extrabiblical methodologies and manipulation unmistakably indicate where their confidence truly lies.

In the end, the fatal flaw of seeker-sensitivity—and every other movement that carries on Finney’s legacy—is that they usurp a role that does not belong to them. Salvation is not up to us. No one—no matter how clever or cool—can coerce a sinner into God’s kingdom. God alone is responsible for rescuing sinners from hell, as He intervenes into lives and illuminates hearts to the truth of His Word.

As Jonah succinctly declared, “Salvation belongs to the Lord” (Jonah 2:9 ESV). Christ Himself confirmed that very point in John 6:44, explaining that “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” Only God can resurrect the dead and grant them new life in Him (Ephesians 2:4-5).

In God’s gracious plan, we do have a part to play in bringing the gospel to a lost and dying world (Matthew 28:19-20; Romans 10:14). But we need to keep our role in proper perspective: We’re called to be messengers, not manipulators. With that in mind, we need to measure the success of our gospel preaching not by the number of professed converts, but by our faithfulness to the truth of Scripture.

Standing together for the gospel compels us to stand together against any movement that overestimates the importance of the messenger and his methods. It means we need to boldly oppose anyone who seeks to usurp God’s role in the work of salvation, and that we faithfully proclaim the sufficiency of God’s Word.

Imagine you see a drowning man, and the life preserver in your hand is all that stands between him and certain death. You wouldn’t disguise the flotation device to resemble the water in which he was drowning. You wouldn’t openly question the efficacy of the life-preserver, or debate the relative merits of other floating objects. And you certainly wouldn’t try to convince him that he could manipulate the power of the life-preserver if he simply had enough faith.

Sadly, too many in the church today treat the life preserver of the gospel in similar, wrong-headed ways.

Lost in a sea of self-deception, self-righteousness, rebellion, lust, and all sorts of depravity, the world’s only hope is the transforming work of the Lord through His Spirit and Word. The church exists as God’s witness on earth, testifying to His truth in word and deed, and doing what it can to rescue lost sinners before it is too late.

However, one of the greatest hindrances to the work of the church is often the church itself.

The reasons vary. Sometimes the church excuses and tolerates sin to the point it becomes a hypocritical laughingstock, rendering its testimony meaningless and its ministry impossible. It’s hard to overstate how dangerous the church’s dalliances with unchecked sin can be. We’ve already discussed depravity in detail, and if the church can’t or won’t set a moral and spiritual example, it effectively has nothing to offer the world.

But it’s not just sin that impedes the reach and the usefulness of the church. Today, the church’s effectiveness is often cut short by wrong priorities. By placing a high priority on things like numerical growth, worldly credibility, or extra-biblical authority, the church diminishes the value of biblical fidelity and cripples its ability to be salt and light in the world (Matthew 5:13-16). Let’s consider some prominent examples of that tragic pattern.

The Seeker-Sensitive Church

Seeker-sensitivity is not a new phenomenon, but its chameleonic qualities have kept it a driving force in church culture for several decades. And while the trends it imitates may change, the underlying priority—to make the church more attractive, entertaining, and agreeable to unsaved audiences—is still misleading congregations across the country and around the world.

If anything, the market-driven philosophy of ministry has become a much more pervasive problem in recent years. Whereas seeker-sensitivity once had a fairly consistent look and feel—primarily appealing to upper-middle class suburban sensibilities—today there is no end of sub-cultures and interest groups that churches cater to.

But all those variations come down to the same basic compromise, and, as John MacArthur explains in Ashamed of the Gospel, they all share the same fatal flaw.

Unfortunately, the market-driven ministry philosophy appeals to the very worst mood of our age. It caters to people whose first love is themselves and who care not for God—unless they can have Him without disrupting their selfish lifestyles. Promise such people a religion that will allow them to be comfortable in their materialism and self-love, and they will respond in droves. [1]

If the church is the only hope there is for the world, why would it spend so much time and effort trying to imitate the world? And if a sinner was convinced of his need for the Savior, why would he turn to a congregation that so closely resembled the world he needed to be saved out of?

If the church wants to confuse, weaken, or shroud the world’s only hope, seeker-sensitive methodology is the way to go.

The Postmodern Church

Vying for worldly acceptance and credibility isn’t solely the territory of seeker-sensitive churches. The postmodern church is a kind of seeker-sensitive model tuned specifically to cynics, skeptics, and anti-authority types.

The postmodern church embodies the world’s approach to truth—that it is relative and subjective. The result is that biblical doctrine—including fundamental and historical doctrine—is open for debate and deconstruction. They hold even their own convictions with an open hand, and rather than establishing and fighting for the truth, they reflect the attitude of the Athenian philosophers Paul encountered, always looking for something new and novel (Acts 17:21).

All of that is undergirded by a feigned humility—as though conviction could only be the product of close-minded arrogance. In that regard, the postmodern church reduces faith and Bible study to academic pursuits, and kicks open the door to any and all spurious doctrines. But that kind of doctrinal pluralism isn’t producing more refined theology or more confidence in the Word of God. Instead it’s propagating heresy, and, as John MacArthur explains in The Truth War, encouraging unbelief.

The idea that the Christian message should be kept pliable and ambiguous seems especially attractive to young people who are in tune with the culture and in love with the spirit of the age and can’t stand to have authoritative biblical truth applied with precision as a corrective to worldly lifestyles, unholy minds, and ungodly behavior. And the poison of this perspective is being increasingly injected into the evangelical church body.

But that is not authentic Christianity. Not knowing what you believe (especially on a matter as essential to Christianity as the gospel) is by definition a kind of unbelief. Refusing to acknowledge and defend the revealed truth of God is a particularly stubborn and pernicious kind of unbelief. Advocating ambiguity, exalting uncertainty, or otherwise deliberately clouding the truth is a sinful way of nurturing unbelief. [2]

There is no hope to offer the world if the church refuses to be clear about what it believes and steadfast in its commitment to God’s Word. God’s truth faces enough attacks from the outside world—we need not tear it down from the inside, too.

The Charismatic Church

Another way the church has fostered its own misdirection is exemplified in the charismatic church. By overemphasizing the apostolic gifts and taking an unbiblical view on the work of the Holy Spirit—not to mention the believer’s supposed ability to wield and direct the Spirit—the charismatic movement has largely derailed from biblical orthodoxy and plunged millions worldwide into blind idolatry.

Perhaps the most spiritually deadly aspect of the charismatic church is how it insulates its followers from biblical discernment. With miracles and messages from the Lord supposedly abounding, there is no consistency or continuity to the manifestations of the Spirit, and no fixed standard by which all miraculous claims are measured. In spite of the evidence of hoaxes and charlatans, the movement continues to suspend disbelief.

Impervious to critique, charismatic leaders can do and say whatever they like, and their capacity for inventing new heresies knows no bounds. As John MacArthur describes in Strange Fire, the charismatic movement has funneled false teaching into the rest of the church.

In recent history, no other movement has done more to damage the cause of the gospel, to distort the truth, and to smother the articulation of sound doctrine. Charismatic theology has turned the evangelical church into a cesspool of error and a breeding ground for false teachers. It has warped genuine worship through unbridled emotionalism, polluted prayer with private gibberish, contaminated true spirituality with unbiblical mysticism, and corrupted faith by turning it into a creative force for speaking worldly desires into existence. By elevating the authority of experience over the authority of Scripture, the Charismatic Movement has destroyed the church’s immune system—uncritically granting free access to every imaginable form of heretical teaching and practice. [3]

Unsurprisingly, the world can see through the lies and the corruption of the charismatic church. So its continued dominance isn’t just a threat to the people caught under its influence—it also tarnishes the reputation of the rest of the church, as it turns the Lord, His miraculous power, and faith in Him into a pathetic joke for the watching world. And until the charismatic movement begins to police itself and ceases to be a breeding ground for heretics, charlatans, and con artists, it will continue to be a significant hindrance to the reach of the true gospel.

God’s people need to get serious about His truth—its sufficiency, its inerrancy, and its authority. We need to be clear about what it says, and what it means by what it says. And we need to be unhindered in our ability to bring that truth to a corrupt and dying world.